


Just Like Sunlight

by Zither



Category: Destiny (Video Game)
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, F/F, Flame Wings, Temporary Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-10
Updated: 2016-05-10
Packaged: 2018-06-07 12:20:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,555
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6803902
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zither/pseuds/Zither
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Death is an occupational hazard.</p><p>Coming back to life is an occupational perk, but that doesn't mean your loved ones have to be happy about the first part.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Just Like Sunlight

The Vandal’s blade struck high, cutting a brilliant swathe through the air as Wei ducked underneath it. A hiss came from somewhere above her head; she didn’t even try to suppress the laugh it drew out of her. “Down low!” she sang, and threw herself sideways before the follow-up lunge could connect. “Too slow!” Her opponent's nerve failed before it could go for a third hit. Holding herself in check took some effort, but she let it back off to rejoin its companions.

“We’re wasting time,” said a voice. Its light, appraising tone was at odds with the impatient words. “If you’re not done soon, I’ll pop their heads myself.”

Eyeing the three targets in question, Wei took a step forward. It had been the work of seconds to disarm them. They would challenge her in close quarters again, or not at all. “You love it, 3. Sitting up there scoped in on me like that.”

“I’m not, you ass. Somebody has to keep an eye out for – scouts!” A flash of light corkscrewed into the earth near Wei’s foot, spattering hot mud up her shin plate. She flinched, but held her ground. The sniper had fired wide on purpose, afraid of hitting its comrades. Several moments went past, then Eriana’s Longbow hiccuped out a reply. “Got one. There’s a couple more, I think.”

 _So?_ Wei almost said. She bit back the word, not wanting Eriana to take it the wrong way. It wasn’t as if she didn’t appreciate a bit of covering fire. Quite the opposite: knowing Eriana was up there, one eye on the horizon and the other on her (however much she might protest), was like having the midsummer sun itself at her back. Still – Wei saw the first Vandal tense in preparation for a rush and leaped up over its head, trusting the air to catch her - still, she wished Eriana would come down and fight at her side instead. The patrol route they were on was as safe as it got. You didn’t need Warlock senses to taste the Light residue everywhere, blue and gold and purple flavours intermingling. Each of them could die a thousand times over and still have more than enough energy left to claw her way home. There was no reason they shouldn’t be in the thick of it together.

“I need to work on my aim,” Eriana said, like they were halfway through a proper two-sided argument. It would have unnerved Wei, had she herself not been able to read Eriana like a book. Better than most books. “So do you.”

The jump pack gave out. Wei used the reserve to strafe away from a cluster of jagged rocks, then let herself fall. “You saying I can’t shoot straight?”

“You saying I can’t?” There was a note of mock outrage in Eriana’s voice. “We’re good. We could be even better.”

“I’m practicing –“ Wei began, and was cut off by a lunge from the right. Ghost uncurled beneath her ribs; her arm snapped up to block the strike, catching it across the shield that had just appeared in her hand. Her attacker made an odd little squeak as its blow skittered off a sheet of hard light. It retreated to a safe distance, extra limbs drawn in close to its core. The fear in that stance was easy to read, alien body language or no. She was fighting for fun. They were fighting to survive. “Practicing unarmed combat. Good enough?”

“Because that’s your weak point,” Eriana said. Her voice crackled, alight with fondness. “All your Vanguard assessments go something like: ’Wei Ning struggles to close the gap. She prefers to pick a spot and let the enemy come to her, using exceptional patience to lure out her prey’. Right?”

“Oh, fuck off,” Wei said, but the last word turned into a snort of laughter. She feinted to the left, then threw a blind punch at the second Vandal as it came back for more. Her fist connected with a satisfying _thunk. Draw the lightning down through your arm before you strike,_ her instructors had always said: but it made no difference, not when she could feel the storm raging in every one of her cells. The Vandal’s body came apart at the seams, collapsing into undifferentiated brightness. Not even a scrap of the fabric it had worn remained.

A faint click. “That’s more like it.”

“Can’t rush perfection,” Wei said, and grinned to herself. Even over a helmet link, the appreciative note in Eriana’s voice was clear. Both the remaining Vandals had backed off, flickering in and out of stealth as they did so. They were shoulder to shoulder, so close that one solid grenade throw would land her a double, and neither seemed able to take their eyes off the spot where their comrade had died. The smaller of the pair was making harsh noises deep down in its throat, over and over. “Yeah, you want some too? Don’t be shy.”

“Keep on sweet-talking them like that, I might get jealous,” Eriana said. “Why don’t you just drop the Fist?” She’d given up on sounding casual. All of Wei’s nerves fizzed with anticipation, but she couldn’t resist drawing it out a little first.

“On those two? I dunno, seems like overkill…”

“The word 'overkill' isn’t part of your lexicon. I’ve seen you break it out for wasps.”

There was a smart response on the tip of Wei’s tongue – _there are merciless bugs who want us all dead so they can take our worlds for their own, and then there are Fallen_ \- but she never got the chance to use it. Static hissed on the other end of the comm, then Eriana’s voice cut through it: “Move!” She didn’t need to hear more. Everything in her was primed to respond to that note of urgency. A flurry of projectiles tore the ground around her to shreds as she ran. She was still congratulating herself on the dodge when a patch of air next to her solidified, knocked her blocking arm aside, and drove its blade past her gorget in a single, vicious thrust.

Her own arc energy absorbed the worst of the shock. The Vandal’s masked face was inches away from her visor. She could see all four of its opaque blue eyes shining down at her, like bright beads embedded deep in the flesh. Its mandibles flared outward in a snarl of… triumph? No, not a snarl; real words, words she couldn’t understand. “All you need to know,” she heard her first instructor say, “is that they’re not inviting you over for sourcake and rainy tea.” Almost everyone had laughed. It withdrew the blade with a sharp jerk, and she staggered backward. Eriana’s shouts blurred into a single nonsense sound. Her brain wasn’t working how it should. Maybe that was why none of her limbs would listen to it.

“I fucked up,” she said – couldn’t say, not around a mouthful of blood. “Should’ve been paying attention. Got arrogant.” Shots rang out in the distance. Ghost was a panicky little lump in her throat, struggling to fix the unfixable. _It’s okay,_ she thought. _I’m okay._ The sand underneath her was warm and welcoming, softer than any barracks mattress. A cold ache radiated from her neck on down, as if she’d swallowed an ice cube. Even that was beginning to fade. _This is good. It feels right._ Eriana wouldn’t stop screaming and Ghost wouldn’t stop fighting – or was it the other way around? _This is right!_ _Let me sleep!_

Ghost gave up, and the life went out of her in a great sigh of relief.

Then it came rushing back in. She rushed back in. She was a wave, an immense breaker smashing through the world’s sea defences. The tide receded, left her standing on solid ground. A wash of sunlight broke across her visor as she lifted her head.

 _Solar Light,_ Ghost said. There was a hard knot of shared emotion in Wei’s chest. How she would go about untangling it, she had no idea. _See?_

She did see. Or didn’t: there were no Fallen left to fight. The strip of land she had bled to death on moments before was charred, barren. At the heart of it all stood Eriana, veiled in plasma. It was like staring into the sun; Wei’s visor kicked in, reducing the image to a more bearable level of brightness. Even as she blinked spots out of her eyes, she couldn’t help but resent the interference.

Eriana turned, and – were those wings spilling down her back? _No two displays of radiance are alike._ She’d long since memorised every shifting detail of Eriana’s, but this one was new. They moved with her, flaring a little as she spoke.

“Wei,” she said, like the snap of an ember.

“Hey, you.” Wei tried for _joking,_ but the words came out tinged with awe. “Miss me?”

No answer. Instead, Eriana crossed the battlefield in a few swift steps. Even through layers of armour and shielding, the heat she gave off was enough to make Wei sweat. Unhesitating, she reached out with both hands and Light.

“Careful!” That sounded clearer, though the fire’s hiss was still audible underneath.

“You know I won’t burn myself,” Wei said. She ran her fingers through the fiery little cluster of feathers sprouting from Eriana’s left shoulder. “Where did these come from? Tell me before you change it up.”

A little shudder, not quite full-blown amusement. Wei held her close, felt her go from incandescent to merely feverish. The feathers fell away one by one, crumbling into charcoal and thin air before they hit the ground.

“There,” she said. “You still look radiant.”

“I laughed the first time,” Eriana said, and went straight for Wei’s helmet seal. Her touch was delicate, almost cautious, as if she were checking for injuries. Wei leaned into it a little, following the warmth.

“Not that I’m complaining,” she said, “but you know they didn’t stab me in the face?”

“They did, actually. After you went down.” A hint of the old crackle returned to Eriana’s voice. “I saved that one for last.”

Without filters, the stink of ash was impossible to ignore. More than that, the burn of Eriana’s Light lingered in the air like a sharp spice. She had stamped her own signature all over the area. “Really went in on them, didn’t you? My little nuclear warhead.” Wei began unlatching Eriana’s helmet seals in turn. “Come on. If I’m playing with sniper fire, so are you.”

“I got the scouts,” Eriana said, with more than a hint of professional pride. “The power of the Y-03. Told you you should have picked one up when you had the chance.”

“Not my thing. Now, the flechette shotgun…” She eased the helm off and set it in Eriana’s arms with care. “I’ll always regret passing on that.” When she glanced back up, she was caught off guard by the afternoon sunlight falling across Eriana’s face. It brought out the silver highlights, made the gold ones glow as if she were still alight. All the lights underneath were blazing a brilliant shade of blue. Poetic similes had never been Wei’s instinctual response to beauty, but she felt the need to reach for one nonetheless; _like staring down into deep water on a hot summer’s day,_ maybe. For a moment, neither of them spoke. She didn’t have the words, or else couldn’t get them out.

“You plan on losing your shit like this every time I die?” Those words would have to do. “Not that the ‘feel justice’s burn’ act doesn’t work for me, but you knew I wouldn’t be gone long. Who said you could go and steal my kills in the meantime?”

A ripple ran across Eriana’s features. Her lights settled into a distinctly smug sequence. “Fine. As soon as _I_ get run through by some dinky little shock blade on a routine patrol…”

“Oh, here we go.”

“You know we’re going to have to log the incident when we report in.” Another full-face flicker. She’d gone beyond smugness into outright gloating. “The whole incident. Including the part where you got shown the light by some intergalactic pirate with a cloak louder than Pahanin’s latest.”

“I’ll blame it on you,” Wei said, stooping to retrieve her helmet. “Somehow. Why do you have wings?”

“Huh?” Eriana visibly checked herself before she could glance back over her shoulder. “What do you mean?”

“When you light up.” Wei made a vague sweeping gesture with her free arm. “The burn pattern’s different. You get wings now.”

“Oh,” Eriana said, as if gaining white-hot pinions when you lost your temper were an everyday occurrence. From here on, Wei supposed it would be. “Well, the fire shapes itself. I guess it was time for a shift.”

“But why wings?”

“Why, why, why?” Eriana teased. “Maybe you should have been the Warlock.”

“Fight me,” Wei said, and then grinned at her. “Why?”

“If I had to make an educated guess,” Eriana said, “I’d blame it on pre-Collapse iconography. Winged beasts and humans show up all over the place. Remember that building we fought our way through in the EDZ? Huge, old, lots of intact glass?” She shrugged. “Or maybe the Light just thinks they look cool.”

“Maybe the Light thinks they look hot,” Wei said, rounding off with a finger gun for emphasis. Eriana’s groan drew a genuine belly laugh out of her. Even Ghost joined in, sending little shocks of warmth through her from head to toe. If there was a tired, wrung-out edge to it – well, that was between the four of them and nobody else. “Want to take a look around, see if they left any decent salvage behind? Pretty sure you reduced everything here to atoms, but those caves downvalley might be worth a try…”

“Salvage. Sure.” They fell into step, brushing shoulders as they walked through the ashes. A scrap of blackened cloth caught Wei’s eye, and she paused to kick some dirt over it. After a moment of silence, Eriana spoke. “Think we should retrieve that?”

“Are you serious?” The fabric’s true colour was unguessable, never mind its origin. “What did I say? You went _in.”_

“One of us had to,” Eriana murmured. Wei tried to hip-check her, but she was already sidestepping out of range. Her face, when she turned, was in flux. Icy flashes of happiness chased each other around her mouth, at odds with the indigo frown creeping down from her forehead. “Next time, don’t bring your damn fists to a knife fight.”

“All’s well that ends well,” Wei said. Underneath her bootheel, a large chunk of ash gave way with an unpleasant _crunch_. This time, Eriana didn’t try to dodge the one-armed side hug Wei pulled her into. Her frown began to dim a little, and faded still further when Wei leant down to whisper: “This is gonna end well, by the way.” She got an elbow in the side for her trouble, but Eriana was laughing – uncontrollable, silent laughter, all brilliant azure-blue. That counted as a win. A late afternoon breeze had begun to stir, brushing across the nape of her neck like warm fingers; before the wind could settle, she kicked up a puff of dust just to watch it scatter.

**Author's Note:**

> This was inspired by a stray prompt for "wingfic, but without actual wings". Of course, I went straight to "Eriana/Wei not!wingfic with FLAME WINGS".
> 
> Title is from 'Sunlight' by Bag Raiders, which is far too upbeat a song for what this fic turned into.


End file.
